ILWU Accepts Sellout Contract With EGT

The progressive and labor press have been claiming a victory for the ILWU in Longview, Washington, attributing it to a combination of worker militancy and support by the OWS movement. However, it is questionable whether ILWU local 21 actually won this stuggle.

The Transport Workers Solidary Committee recently published a letter from a rank and file member of Local 21 who called the new contract with EGT a sellout, saying that it “gives away the union shop,” doesn’t protect ILWU jobs and forces longshoremen to work long hours.

Read the letter here

ILWU Port of Longview Update

EGT has recognized Local 21 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) as the sole bargaining representative for workers at its new grain terminal in Longview, Washington, Working In These Times reported this week, bringing to an end EGT’s attempt to open the first non-union port terminal on the West Coast.

Workers at the terminal signed union authorization cards on January 30 and 31 and an arbitrator has verified their authenticity. EGT and the ILWU agreed to negotiate a contract to finalize the deal.

The agreement came after mediation by Washington Governor Christine Gregoire on the eve of a showdown between union members and their supporters who planned to blockade a Coast Guard protected grain ship due to arrive at the EGT terminal this month. Other actions over the past year have included blockades of trains delivering grain to the terminal, as well as pickets and demonstrations that were met with extreme police violence and over 100 arrests.

In related news, the Left Labor Reporter wrote earlier this week that a jury has found four women not guilty of blocking a train at the EGT grain terminal last September, bringing to six the total number of acquittals of ILWU members and their supporters (or 100% of the cases brought to trial so far).

The union-recognition victory for Local 21 can be attributed to their militancy and perseverance in the face of police violence and employer intransigence, as well as the solidarity of other locals. ILWU members at the Port of Tacoma and Vancouver, for example, went out on wildcat strikes, while workers shut down ports up and down the West Coast at various times in solidarity with Local 21. OWS activists also attempted to shut down West Coast ports in support of the Local 21, succeeding in halting activity at several Oakland terminals.

Sadly, but not surprisingly, ILWU International President Robert McEllrath used the settlement as an opportunity to portray EGT as a good and honest corporate friend, saying “we are committed to developing a long-term relationship with EGT."

While this sentiment was no doubt intended to help heal some of divisiveness and anger in the community of Longview and to encourage rank and file support for upcoming contract negotiations, it should be remembered by all workers that the boss is never a true friend and any long-term relationship is necessarily one of subservience.

Employees’ interests are irrelevant unless they coincide with increased profits for shareholders and executives. Any compromises EGT makes during contract negotiations will be made purely on a cost-benefit basis. For example, it was cheaper to hire Local 21 members and to recognize their union than to face continued work stoppages, blockades and legal battles.

What Local 21 members will get out of the deal is job security at the Port of Longview. In exchange, EGT will likely demand reduced wages, benefits and working conditions. Union members still face multiple criminal charges and the ILWU still faces $300,000 in fines for disobeying an injunction against illegal picketing issued by a federal judge. If EGT really was a friend, they would drop all pending charges and/or ask the courts to do so.

Breaking News: Union Membership is Rising, Declining or Remaining Constant

Unions and union busting are big news lately. Thus, it should be no surprise that much of the media jumped upon a recent report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on the state of union membership in America. The only thing surprising about the report was how differently it was parsed by various news sources.

The Los Angeles Times excitedly proclaimed that “Union membership grew nationally in 2011,” with unions picking up 49,000 new members. However, before you crack the champagne, the New York Times gloomily declared that “Union Membership Rates Fell Again in 2011.” The NY Times went on to say that the decades-long drop in union membership continued in 2011, falling to just 11.8% of the American workforce, a 0.1% decline from 2010. Life, however, saw this 0.1% as a sign that things were becoming less bad, posting the following headline: “Union Membership Rates Are No Longer Falling.” 

Of course all three conclusions can be true. A drop of 0.1% may indeed be a leveling off after years of sharper declines (after all, 1.4 million union jobs were lost between 2008 and 2010). And if the number of total number of workers increased by more than the number of new union members, then the 49,000 increase reported by the LA Times could still result in a net 0.1% decrease overall, which was in fact what happened.

So is there any real news here at all?

Not really.

Union membership is still the lowest it’s been in decades and the reasons for the decline have not substantively changed. The biggest recent drops in union membership resulted from the massive layoffs and cuts that accompanied the recession, while the longer term trend has been driven largely by downsizing and outsourcing, combined with union busting, none of which shows much sign of abating. Furthermore, even if the decline has leveled off for the moment, continuing state and local budget crises will likely result in more waves of public sector layoffs and consequently more declines in union membership.

It is not just the vagaries of capitalism that have caused the decline in unionism. Unions themselves must take much of the blame for clinging to antiquated, nationalistic and selfish tactics and perspectives that alienate younger workers and divide the working class. The AFL-CIO, for example, has consistently jumped on the nationalistic and racist bandwagon accusing China and other countries of stealing our jobs, rather than working in solidarity with international unions to improve wages and working conditions worldwide.

Or consider the Keystone XL Pipeline that has pitted environmentalists against unions. Why should anyone support a pipeline that will carry crude oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico? It is dangerous, dirty and will actually increase oil prices because the oil is so expensive to extract from the Canadian tax sands. It will run through one of the richest agricultural tracts in the world, placing the water and food for millions of Americans at risk. Meanwhile, it will worsen climate change by increasing the amount of petroleum being extracted and consumed.

Of course the economy sucks and people want jobs and this project could provide some. But this is like saying that gangs provide jobs and should be encouraged or that child pornography creates jobs and should be promoted.

This brings up another backwards union perspective: Jobs trump all else.

Jobs are a means to an end: getting food into one’s mouth. “Good” jobs are good only in so much as they provide material security at minimal costs to one’s health and wellbeing and even this is an expedient. Many jobs are simply not worth preserving at all. Banking, insurance and real estate speculation serve no common good, while the automotive, petroleum, coal, tobacco and nuclear industries actually cause millions of deaths each year. To demand more jobs in these fields is to demand the proliferation of homelessness, pollution, warfare and preventable deaths, not a very compelling platform for attracting new members.

It is understandable that people are demanding jobs and that the unions want to preserve them. There is no hope in the foreseeable future that the state or society will adequately provide for the unemployed, or pay to retrain them, while the Protestant Work Ethic and American Dream mythology are so deeply embedded in our culture that many people feel degraded, useless or bored when they don’t have a job.

But there is another reason for unions’ obsession with jobs: it is a cheap and easy way for union leaders to win points with their members. Union bosses are constantly making compromises and deals with corporate bosses, like the UAW recently did in Detroit, to save a few jobs in exchange for pay and benefits cuts. The corporate bosses get increased profits by spending less on their employees, while the union bosses get to hold onto their cushy six-figure salaries and suit-and-tie lifestyles, free from the dirt and grime of the shop floor or classroom. By keeping their members on the job, unions can continue to collect dues that go to the salaries of their officers, and to lobbying and litigation. By ending conflicts quickly and cheaply through compromises and sellouts, unions reduce their bureaucratic and legal costs, leaving more money for their officers’ salaries.

This also helps to explain why unions have engaged in fewer strikes and labor struggles in the past three years than at almost any other time in the past 80 years. On the one hand, strikes are risky and can be expensive if members are jailed or the union is fined, as the ILWU in Longview, WA can attest. Lobbying, politics and litigation are also expensive, but they are easily outsourced to professional hacks, helping to keep the rank and file under control with promises that “our guy” will change things once elected. It is certainly much easier than organizing, which requires large numbers of well-trained organizers to go out into the “field” and actually listen to workers, something that bosses of all varieties, including union bosses, are loathe to do. Who knows, they might hear something they don’t like.

Lastly, mainstream trade unions benefit from the capitalist system and have no interest in challenging it. Indeed, they are dependent upon it. While they may challenge the bosses now and then, they will always send their members back to work under the belief that ruining the boss means their own ruination. Thus, it becomes imperative to union leaders that “peace” is maintained between workers and employers and that bosses continue to be permitted to earn huge profits on their backs, because this is seen as the source of jobs and potential raises. This perspective makes the boss out as the workers’ friend, which any worker can see is patently false.

Oh I love my boss

He’s a good friend of mine

That’s why I’m starving out on the bread line

Hallelujah I’m a bum,

Hallelujah, bum again,

Won’t you give us a handout to revive us again

First printed by the IWW, 1908, becoming the anthem of the Spokane free speech fight

Port of Longview, ILWU and EGT Agree on Settlement

The rank and file members of ILWU local 21 have agreed to a new contract with EGT at the Port of Longview, Wa, after months of brutality by local police (see here) and intransigence by EGT. (For more on the history of the struggle, see here).

According to the new contract, EGT will hire only workers dispatched from the Local 21 hall. However, workers must then vote on whether they wish to be represented by the ILWU, the Daily News Online wrote this week.

While this compromise doesn’t nix ILWU members outright, like EGT’s prior practice of hiring only non-ILWU members, it does leave open the possibility of hiring non-union workers willing to apply for work at the union hall. It prevents an automatic closed shop from existing at EGT, which would have otherwise been the case. And it also opens the door to an employer-led anti-union campaign on the jobsite and threats and intimidation to keep non-ILWU members from joining the union and to prevent a closed shop from emerging.

Ostensibly, this provision was designed to avoid violating federal labor law, which prohibits companies from designating a union before it even hires a work force. However, EGT had made earlier promises to hire Local 21 members and then reneged on the promise, precipitating the conflict in the first place. And if the company really wanted to hire ILWU members, then it would just hire them and they could call it a union after the fact. In reality, it is simply an attempt to weaken or stamp out the union influence, something ILWU members most likely felt confident they could prevent by requiring all new hires to come from their union hall.

The agreement also requires both sides to drop all unfair labor practice claims and other litigation. The ILWU would still be liable for damages from last summer's protests, which a federal judge has placed at more than $300,000. The union is appealing the amount.

One particularly curious and burdensome aspect of the contract requires the ILWU to ask all outside groups, including the Occupy movement, to refrain from picketing at EGT. However, this is not the ILWU’s responsibility. They never asked for OWS to picket or shut down ports and they have no control or jurisdiction over them anyway.

Longview ILWU Has Tentative Settlement With EGT Terminal

A tentative settlement has been reached between the ILWU in Longview, Washington, and the grain terminal operator EGT. The battle has been long and bitter, with several hundred arrests of ILWU members and their families, police brutality and the use of the coast guard to protect the interests of the private company.

Details of the agreement, as usual, have yet to be released

Occupation of ITOCHU in SF in Support of Longview ILWU

Modern School has been reporting on the ILWU's battle in Longview, WA for some time now. The most recent development has been the deployment of the U.S. military to protect the interests of private capital (EGT) and the threat of using the War on Terror against union members.

Last week, activists in San Francisco occupied ITOCHU in support of the ILWU in Longview.

Check out the following video from the Labor Video Project:

Is U.S. Planning Military Force to Suppress Unions and OWS?

Image from Flickr, by World Can't Wait

As I reported on Modern School recently, the U.S. government has committed Coast Guard ships and helicopters to defending the interests of private capital in Washington State against striking ILWU members. The Coast Guard will supposedly be protecting empty ships as they arrive in the port of Longview, Washington to pick up grain from the EGT grain terminal. EGT, which owns the terminal, has been hiring scab labor to operate the terminal, in violation of prior agreements with the ILWU. EGT has utilized the local police and private goons to intimidate ILWU members and their families, including several hundred arrests and violent assaults on peacefully demonstrating long shore workers and their families.

With Obama’s signing of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), any ILWU member accused of committing a “belligerent act” against the United States could be imprisoned indefinitely without charges or trial on the orders of the president. This means that any direct action aimed at interfering with boats arriving to pick up grain in Longview could be considered an act of aggression against the U.S. government now that those boats will be under the protection of the U.S. government.

According to Insurgent Notes, U.S. ports are already semi-militarized by “Homeland Security.” Longshoremen are required to show three electronic “smart card” IDs to enter their workplaces each day, and they are subject to background security checks.

Journalist Chris Hedges has sued the U.S. government to halt NDAA, saying it violates the constitution, as it allows the U.S. military to arrest anyone anywhere in the world and hold them indefinitely without charges. Public interest lawyer Carl Mayer told the Epoch Times that the law violates the 1^st and 5^th amendments. While lawmakers and the mainstream press continue to insist the law is meant to halt terrorist acts against the U.S., Hedges believes NDAA was designed specifically to be used against dissenters within the U.S., including anyone involved in movements deemed threatening to the “corporate state,” such as the OWS movement. (Click here to read Hedges “Why I’m Suing Obama.”)

The date of arrival of the first Coast Guard-escorted ship to the Port of Longview is a closely guarded secret. However, according to Insurgent Notes, OWS activists in the San Francisco Bay Area, Portland and Seattle are organizing caravans to Longview when the date becomes known. Elsewhere in the United States, Occupy is planning demonstrations at Coast Guard offices and at the offices of the three corporations which jointly own EGT.